District 4 is an entirely new world, but with Finnick by her side, Sil is eager to make it her new home. A glimpse into Sil and Finnick's life as they begin to settle down. Sequel to The Sterling Nightingale. Finnick/OC

There is something indescribably poetic about doing something as simple as sitting in the sand, with the dark ocean stretched out for miles and the sky peppered with thousands of twinkling stars. With the warm press of Finnick's body at her back, Sil thinks she could stay out here forever amid the crashing sound of the waves and the endless glow of starlight.

"There's Andromeda," Finnick murmurs suddenly in her ear, pointing up to the heavens where a constellation of stars brightly shines. Sil leans back against his shoulder and studies the cluster of stars. She vaguely recalls learning about the constellations during the years of her education, but her memories of the myths and legends of the ancients have been washed away by her more recent pursuits.

"Andromeda's mother, Queen Cassiopeia, claimed herself to be the most beautiful woman alive – even more lovely than the sea nymphs. Poseidon was furious about her claims and demanded that she sacrifice her daughter as payment. So Cassiopeia chained Andromeda to a cliff by the ocean, and the kraken came up to claim her. I'm sure you remember the kraken, don't you?" He snickers at the memory.

Sil gives him a glowering look and sniffs, "Unfortunately."

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her cheek, smirking to himself as he recalls the ease of her fright.

She sighs at him and curiously wonders, "Well? You're telling a story, so finish it." Her voice is perfectly haughty, as if she doesn't really care if he continues the tale or not, but he knows better. She's too curious for her own good, sometimes.

Shifting a little to get more comfortable, Finnick shrugs, "Well, before the kraken could get to her, Perseus showed up and used the head of Medusa to kill the monster by turning it to stone. They say it's still down there, sunk to the bottommost corner of the sea."

Sil tucks her head into the crook of his neck and asks, "And what happened to Andromeda and Perseus?"

Finnick hums thoughtfully and humors her with a soft, "They fell in love."

The simple explanation makes Sil turn in his arms, facing him with a narrowed expression. "That's it? What happens after that?"

Finnick laughs, amused at the way she's become so enraptured in an ancient legend. With a helpless shrug, he asks, "Why does there have to be more to the story?"

Suddenly he doesn't think she's referring to the legend anymore. With a frown, Finnick draws his fingers over her cheek, studying her face closely. He thinks over her words for a long moment before he slowly tells her, "I guess that's life. It's never easy, and there's always gonna be hard parts that makes you wonder if it's worth it." Then, smiling gently at her, he murmurs, "…Being with you is worth it, sugar. Even though you're maddening most of the time, and you drive me insane."

Sil scoffs playfully at him, turning back to press her face against his shoulder as the crash of the ocean serenades them into silence. The quiet plays out around them for a moment, until…

"Why do you call me 'sugar'?" Sil asks, her voice tinged with the slightest tone of amused exasperation. The inquiry is rhetorical. She doesn't expect an answer and frankly, she doubts that he even has one to begin with. Does Finnick Odair ever have reasons for doing what he does?

Finnick, though, takes the question a bit more seriously than she means for him to. He pauses, puffing out his cheeks thoughtfully as he slowly muses, "Maybe I think you're sweet. Maybe I'm…addicted to you." He winks.

Sil rolls her eyes, not seeing the way he watches her with that strange, serious gaze. Her attention drifts back up to the night sky, where the stars burn with a freedom she used to only dream of possessing. How her world has changed.

She barely hears him when he murmurs, "Sugar is one of my favorite things. Maybe you are too." But she does.

Sil laughs and nudges him with her shoulder. "I'm married to a sappy romantic. I wish I'd known about this side of you sooner," she quietly bemoans, but her face breaks out into a pleased smile nonetheless.

The grin he sends her then makes her heart flutter like a wild animal in her chest.

"There's still so much you don't know about me, sugar," he drags out the word playfully and chuckles.

She takes his words as the challenge he probably intends them to be, considering how competitive he is, and responds with gentle reassurance, "Well, I've got the rest of my life to change that."

His grin widens into a beautifully hopeful expression that seems lovelier than all the stars put together. He wraps an arm around her shoulder, turns his head to press his lips against her hair, and whispers, "I like the sound of that."

Sil just snuggles closer and sighs, "Me too."

The rest of their lives? What a flawless set of words.

The End

We are finally closing off Sil and Finnick's story! I know a lot of you wanted me to get into more detail concerning them starting a family, but I just felt that it would have taken something away from the story if I went too far into their future. I will leave the rest up to your imagination. Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed both this story as well as The Sterling Nightingale!

Also, just a small disclaimer that should have gone in the first chapter: The chapter titles for The Seafarer's Wife come from the song Sailor, Your Home is the Sea, with some of my own changes to the wording so as to have it fit into this story better.

I hope to continue hearing from you all through the other stories I am working on! If not, though, I hope you all enjoyed Sil and Finnick's story.

To end their tale on the right note:

"No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws." Pat Conroy

Thank you for reading!

CrashingPetals

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